Polish Biotech Starts its First Clinical Trial with a New Asthma Drug

OncoArendi is starting a first-in-human trial with its lead compound OATD-01, a new class of oral drug for the treatment of asthma.

Based in Warsaw, OncoArendi is pioneering the development of a brand new class of drugs. Its lead candidate, OATD-01, will be evaluated in a Phase I trial in Germany to determine its safety, tolerability and pharmacokinetics in several doses administered to up to 48 healthy male volunteers.

OATD-01 is a dual inhibitor of acidic mammalian chitinase (AMCase) and chitotriosidase (CHIT1), two chitin-degrading enzymes that contribute to inflammatory responses triggered by asthma. The initiation of OncoArendi’s trial will make OATD-01 the first chitinase inhibitor to ever enter clinical development, opening the door for the advancement of a whole new class of drugs with applications that go beyond asthma and into other lung diseases such as idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis or sarcoidosis.

This will also be the first clinical trial for the young Polish biotech, which has already raised €34M since its inception in 2012 and is part of the flourishing biotech sector in Poland.

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